Popular Culture Review 29.1 (Spring 2018) | Page 91

video . 10 I ’ ll highlight the center-lude examples here .
As the musical interlude begins , images from World War II flash rapid-fire on the screen . Footage of bomb testing in Los Alamos , New Mexico , melting through prop homes , destroyers launching missiles , marshaling Nazis ( Figure 3 ), Russian troops parading ( Figure 5 ), American soldiers marching towards an A-bomb explosion all appear quickly ( Figure 4 ). The narrative is one of man ’ s destructive power - not directed at a particular government , but rather at all governments . Also included are scenes of social protest ( Figure 6 ).
Part of the effectiveness of this narrative is the bombardment of images . One must watch the video over and over to distinguish all the footage and events included . Together , they overwhelm the viewer with the totality of violence and the brutal history of twentieth-century man . Bombers swarm the sky in other parts of the video , overshadowing the male character who is lost in the desolate , post-apocalyptic landscape of remote Iceland . The ruins of a city flicker in and out of the frames like a ghost . This visual imagery is fairly indicative of the gloomy undercurrents of the album , all centering on loss , destruction , desolation . The montage of historical footage here , which overlays the two human figures of
10 Draconian , “ Stellar Tombs ,” official music video , written and directed by Bowen Stains , 2015 . Nuclear Blast Records .
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